Interview: Andrea Arnold, 'Wuthering Heights' director

Interview: Andrea Arnold, 'Wuthering Heights' director

Since Emily Bronte’s tragic love story Wuthering Heights was released in 1847 it has inspired a ballet, opera, musical, hit Kate Bush song, graphic novel, and numerous film adaptations. The story follows a displaced orphan, Heathcliff, who is taken in by the Earnshaws and falls in love with the family’s young daughter, Catherine.

The newest film adaptation of the story is a haunting illustration of Bronte’s beloved work that is both heartbreaking and moving.

HEA had the chance to talk with the film’s Academy Award-winning director, Andrea Arnold, to learn more about her audacious vision of the classic tale.

Justine: Were there parts of the book that you felt very close to but found that they didn’t fit into your vision?

Andrea: The whole second half, which I really like. I feel like the book comes full circle, so I really didn’t like not having that in the film, but I knew that for the story that I was trying to tell it just didn’t fit. When I joined the project it had already been in development and they wanted to hurry. I didn’t ever feel that I had enough time. Sometimes when you’re going fast, your instincts can be very useful. My instinct was not to include the second half. I wasn’t trying to do a faithful adaptation; I was trying to capture some essence of the book in my own way.

Justine: Did you research the time in which the novel is set or was the book your primary frame of reference?

Andrea: I really just used the book. I really didn’t know how they spoke then, but I did some research because it’s set in a pre-Victorian time when people were quite (brash) and there was a lot of swearing. The Victorians brought with them nervousness about all this kind of stuff. Before that — it wasn’t like that. I liked that and wanted to have that in there so there’s loads of swearing in it — but contemporary swearing because I’m not sure what swear words they used then.

Justine: From what I understand, there’s a very interesting story behind casting black actor James Howson as Heathcliff.

Andrea: James was in an unemployment center, and he saw that we were looking for people who hadn’t acted before. I wanted it to be quite raw, and he saw the poster and he just came along (to the casting). I think it was quite an experience for him, of course, because he’d never done anything like that before.

It was not an easy experience for him because filming is quite tiring. I think people that haven’t done it before are surprised by what hard work it is. I think he loved it, but it wasn’t an easy experience.

Justine: What did you see in him that made you think he embodied Heathcliff?

Andrea: I think it was his vulnerability and anger, actually. James has not had an easy time since we finished the film and it does make me wonder. Obviously when you cast someone who hasn’t acted before it can be a massive opportunity for them. He knew that and he really wanted to do it more than anything. For me it’s quite an interesting process because when you first work with somebody — you don’t know quite how vulnerable they are.

Justine: The climate is such a prevalent part of the novel. The story is set in the U.K. in Yorkshire where the weather is temperamental. How did that affect production?

Andrea: We sort of went through a bit of a journey with the weather. When we went out there to do some tests, we had a day when the wave of the rain was horizontal. We were all completely drenched and I thought to myself, “This is the Yorkshire moors. We’re going to get all the weather we need and won’t have to fake anything.” Then when we started filming we actually had no rain for about a week and we needed weather.

I normally go with the flow. Usually, I make such small-budget films that I can’t afford to buy weather. We were shooting in a very remote place, so getting things like wind and rain machines up there would have been difficult and interfered with the sound — also we didn’t have loads of money for these things.

Then, of course, we didn’t have any weather and there was one scene where it needed to be a stormy night, which was the way it was written in the script and the book. We literally had one man with a hose, another shaking a tree to make it look like it was windy, and another person with a string attached to the door so that they could pull it open and closed to make it look like it was banging in the wind. It was the cheapest storm.

To find out more about Wuthering Heights, which is playing in select cities, you can visit the IMDB website.

Check out the trailer:

As a book, film and pop culture journalist, Justine Ashley Costanza has interviewed celebrities such as Steve Carell and Meryl Streep. She’s also an avid reader of romance novels. You can connect with her on Facebook and Twitter (@Justine__Ashley).